


White Cloak

by orphan_account



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief, Hurt, Kingsguard, Love, Sadness, cloak, little bird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-16
Updated: 2011-07-16
Packaged: 2017-10-21 10:55:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/224416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sandor is once again wearing the white cloak of the Kingsguard and it still scares Sansa, but neither of them will admit it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Cloak

She flinches when she first sees him dressed in the armour of the Kingsguard, and through he would like to, he cannot blame her. Sandor doesn’t wear the helmet, but the armour itself is enough to frighten her. Normally he would mock Sansa for it but he can’t seem to bring himself to do so.

“You look gallant, Sandor,” she says, in her meaningless voice that means nothing to him and everything to her. He does not reply. “Like a true knight.”

“I am no knight, little bird,” he growls.

“I am no bird.”

She stands straight and tall, but her face is blank. The bruises that littered her body have gone, but the fear has not.

It is a few long moments, stretching and twisting in the dawn’s light, before he speaks again. “What are we going to live for, Sansa?” It is the first time he has ever said her name, and she jumps a bit.

“Everything,” she says. “Everything and nothing.” The light he has remembered has left her eyes; her face has new lines on it, and she doesn’t smile anymore. She doesn’t care, he realizes. She doesn’t care who sits on the Iron Throne and who does not. She just wants to go home and sing her songs.

“Will you bend the knee to our new queen?”

She laughs a bit, cold and hard and full of winter like her dead father and mother and brother before her. “I’ve fought far too hard for my life to give it up.” She stands so close to him that he can feel her breath on his face. “I thought once that only monsters claimed the Iron Throne. Maybe it turns you into a monster. Maybe if I sat on it I would turn into a monster.”

“Some of us are already monsters.”

“You aren’t,” she says, in a choked voice that threatens tears. “You aren’t.”

Sandor laughs like a man who has nothing to lose. “But I am, little bird. You have no idea.”

“Yes I do,” Sansa says firmly, taking out a worn out handkerchief that was once his, tossing her braided hair over one shoulder. “I’m not afraid of you anymore

Sansa is silent now, face etched in lines of sorrow, red hair coiled back tightly, and Sandor thinks that she has never looked more beautiful. “I stood there in a white cloak and let them beat you,” he whispers.

“I remember,” she croaks. Sansa doesn’t even look at him. “I kept the cloak. And your song.” She moves to the trunk at the foot of her bed, and takes out the white cloak of the Kingsguard.

“Fly,” Sandor says, “Fly away to Winterfell, little bird.” Sansa shakes her head and smiles through a face that is anything but happy. “Fly,” he whispers again, desperately. “Little bird, you have to fly away.”

“I can’t fly,” she whispers back, running a hand down his scarred face. “They clipped my wings.”

“Little bird,” he whispers, grief making his voice lower. And Sansa doesn’t say anything, despite the pain and the scars. She just takes the white cloak of the Kingsguard that the blood has never washed out of, and pins it around his neck.


End file.
